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Cold Catsup

A chilled tomato-based condiment made with tomatoes, peppers, onions, salt, sugar, mustard seed, horseradish, white pepper, and cider vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and horseradish match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,832 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Cold Catsup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the tomatoes finely.

  2. Drain the tomatoes.

  3. Chop the onions and peppers finely.

  4. Mix the onions and peppers with the tomatoes.

Combine and jar

  1. Combine all ingredients, adding the horseradish last.

  2. Transfer the mixture into fruit jars.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Mustard + horseradishtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Onion + horseradishtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,784 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Form the bulk of the sauce and provide moisture and body.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the acidity of the vinegar.
Cider vinegar
Provides acidity that gives the ketchup its tang and helps preserve it.
White mustard seed
Adds pungent flavor and a slight texture to the sauce.
Horseradish
Contributes sharp, pungent heat that fades with time.
Onions
Add savory depth and aromatic flavor to the base.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, pepper, onion, sugar, mustard, horseradish, cider):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Celeryfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, pepper, onion, sugar, mustard, horseradish, cider. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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